IjINCOLN 

VERSUS  ===== 

LIQUOR 


i 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


presented  by 


Marion  D.   Pratt  Estate 


I 


Lincoln  vs.  Liquor 


-by- 


David  Charles  Baker 


BAKER  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
ST.  LOUIS,  MO. 


Copyrighted  1908 
By  DAVID  CHARLES  BAKER 


qns.n  u 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
(From  Barry's  famous  portrait,  made  in  June,  1860) 


Lincoln  vs.  Liquor. 


"He  saw  the  ruin  which  ardent  spirits  were 
causing,  and  became  strictly  temperate,  refusing  to 
allow  a  drop  of  liquor  to  pass  down  his  throat." 


Historians  have  written  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  uncontaminated  by  a  single  vice.  Intimate 
personal  friends,  close  political  associates,  those 
who  best  knew  him,  from  his  youthful  days  in 
Indiana  until  the  end  of  his  glorious  life,  have  veri- 
fied what  the  historians  have  written. 

Lincoln  belonged  to  no  church,  but  he  was 
a  Christian.  He  was  the  true  model  of  the 
Christian  character  as  set  forth  in  the  sermon  on 
the  mount. 

"Thou  shalt  love  thy  Lord,  thy  God,  with  all 
thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind, 
and  thy"  neighbor  as  thyself"  is  the  grandest  rule 
of  action  ever  spoken  for  the  guidance  of  man. 
Lincoln  observed  it.  Upon  it,  the  broad  structure 
of  his  fame   was  builded.     It  was  the  light  that 


directed  him  throughout  his  remarkable  career. 
It  was  his  strict  obedience  to  this  rule  that  made 
him  the  most  sublime  moral  character  the  world 
has  known  since  the  crucifixion  of  Christ. 

The  Bible  was  the  first  book  Lincoln  read. 
His  mother  was  a  good  Christian.  In  his  early 
youth  she  drilled  him  in  the  great  moral  truths 
which  it  contains.  She  taught  him  obedience,  the 
love  of  truth,  and  the  desire  to  be  honest.  He 
never  wavered  from  the  moral  path  that  she  out- 
lined for  him. 

Lincoln's  mother  warned  him  against  the  vice 
of  intemperance.  She  showed  him  that  the  use  of 
liquor  degraded  the  mind  and  that  it  was  destruc- 
tive of  the  soul.  There  is  absolutely"  no  evidence 
to  show  that  in  his  entire  life  he  ever  took  a  drink 
of  liquor.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence  to  the  effect 
that  he  was  as  abstemious  as  an  anchorite;  that  he 
never  took  a  drink  of  liquor,  and  that  he  persuaded 
others  to  leave  it  alone. 

For  the  defenders  of  any  cause  to  be  able  to 
truthfully  point  to  Lincoln's  life  as  an  argument  in 
its  behalf,  is,  of  itself,  a  great  victory  for  that  cause. 
Knowing  this,  the  friends  of  the  liquor  traffic  have 
been  trying  to  show  that  Lincoln  was  not 
unfriendly  to  their  cause.  Their  efforts  must  fail. 
History  provides  the  proof  that  Lincoln  was  not 
only  a  total  abstainer,  but  that  he  firmly  believed, 


and  he  so  expressed  himself,  that  the  sooner  liquor 
was  abolished  the  better  it  would  be  for  the  peace 
and  welfare  of  the  country  and  the  homes  of  our 
land.  He  believed  in  beginning  at  the  roots  of  the 
evil  in  all  efforts  to  eradicate  it.  He  spoke  plainly. 
His  words  were  simple.  Everybody  could  under- 
stand him.  What  he  said  so  many  years  ago  was 
so  well  said  that  his  words  cannot  be  misconstrued 
today. 

In  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  on  the  twenty-second  day"  of  February, 
1842,  Lincoln  delivered  an  address  to  the  Wash- 
ington Temperance  Society.  It  is  his  most  exten- 
sive and  his  greatest  utterance  on  the  temperance 
question  and  the  liquor  evil  that  has  been  pre- 
served to  us  in  its  entirety.  This  speech  contains 
the  convincing  evidence  that  Lincoln  believed  that 
the  liquor  traffic  should  be  wholly"  suppressed. 
Friends  of  the  liquor  interests  have  garbled  this 
speech  in  an  effort  to  show  that  Lincoln  was  not 
unfriendly"  to  them.  They  do  not  dare  reproduce 
the  speech  in  its  entirety.  The  following  is  but 
one  of  many  paragraphs  in  it  which  they  have 
studiously  failed  to  quote: 

'Whether  or  not  the  world  would  be  vastly 
benefited  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from  it 
of  all  intoxicating  drinks,  seems  to  me  not  now  an 
open  question.     Three- fourths  of  mankind  confess 

5 


the  affirmative  with  their  tongues,  and,  I  believe, 
all  the  rest  acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts." 

Lincoln  viewed  liquor  and  slavery  as  twin  evils. 
In  his  Springfield  speech,  referring  to  the  temper- 
ance revolution,  then  in  progress,  he  said: 

"If  the  relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  be 
estimated  by  the  great  amount  of  misery  they 
alleviate,  and  the  small  amount  they  inflict,  then, 
indeed,  will  this  be  the  grandest  the  world  has 
ever  seen." 

After  referring  to  the  pride  of  our  country  in 
the  political  revolution  of  1776,  he  said: 

"Turn  now,  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In 
it  we  shall  find  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler 
slavery  manumitted,  a  greater  tyrant  deposed;  in 
it,  more  of  want  supplied,  more  disease  healed, 
more  sorrow  assuaged.  By  it,  no  orphans  starv- 
ing, no  widows  weeping.  By  it,  none  wounded  in 
feeling,  none  injured  in  interest.  Even  the  dram- 
maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into  other 
occupations  so  gradually"  as  never  to  have  felt  the 
change,  and  will  stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in 
the  universal  song  of  gladness.  And  what  a  noble 
ally  this  to  the  cause  of  political  freedom,  with 
such  an  aid,  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on, 
till  every"  son  of  earth  shall  drink,  in  rich  fruition, 
the  sorrow-quenching  draughts  of  perfect  liberty. 
Happy"  day,   when,    all   appetites   controlled,    all 


poisons  subdued,  all  matter  subjected,  mind,  all 
conquering  mind,  shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch 
of  the  world.  Glorious  consummation!  Hail,  fall 
of  fury!     Reign  of  reason,  all  hail!" 

Do  the  above  sound  like  the  words  of  one  not 
unfriendly  to  the  liquor  traffic? 

Do  the  following  closing  words  of  the  same 
speech  give  evidence  that  Lincoln  was  friendly  to 
the  liquor  cause?  Do  they  not  place  him  on  record 
as  being  its  avowed  enemy? 

"And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete: 
when  there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  or  a  drunkard 
on  the  earth,  how  proud  the  title  of  that  land 
which  may  truly  claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and 
the  cradle  of  both  these  revolutions  that  shall  have 
ended  in  that  victory.  How  nobly  distinguished 
that  people,  -who  shall  have  planted,  and  nurtured 
to  maturity,  both  the  political  and  moral  freedom 
of  their  species." 

To  attempt  to  strengthen  the  bad  side  of  a 
momentous  moral  question  by  misrepresentation 
will  fail.  Through  the  medium  of  newspaper 
articles,  and  by  the  agency  of  pamphlets,  a  deplor- 
able effort  is  under  way  to  show  that  Lincoln 
"occasionally  took  a  drink,"  and  that  he  was  not 
an  enemy  of  the  liquor  traffic.  In  the  light  of  his- 
tory, and  the  evidence  of  men  who  knew  Lincoln, 
and  who  still  live,  such  attempts  are  shameful. 

7 


They  are  not  supported  by  the  smallest  parti- 
cle of  truth.  In  the  discussion  of  Lincoln's  morals, 
his  words,  and  the  words  of  his  friends,  and  the 
writing  of  the  historians  of  his  time,  are  worth 
more,  we  are  bound  to  believe,  and  are  more 
worthy  of  acceptance,  we  insist,  than  the  words  of 
any  friend  of  the  liquor  traffic. 

Lincoln  repeatedly  told  friends  that  he  had 
never  drank  liquor.  Companions  of  his  youth, 
those  who  were  closely  associated  with  him  at 
New  Salem,  men  of  his  company  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war,  his  law  partners,  and  lawyers  who 
rode  the  circuit  with  him  for  many  years,  all  test- 
ify to  the  fact  that  he  was  a  total  abstainer. 
Dennis  Hanks  lived  with  the  Lincoln  family,  in 
Indiana,  from  the  time  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
ten  years  old  untill  he  had  attained  his  majority. 
"Abe  was  strictly  moral,"  said  Hanks,  after  Lincoln 
had  become  President.  "He  never  drank  liquor, 
never  used  tobacco,  and  he  never  swore." 

Long  after  Lincoln  became  a  lawyer,  he  enjoyed 
telling  the  story  of  an  experience  he  had  with  an 
old  Kentuckian,  who  had  been  his  only  companion 
in  a  long  and  tiresome  stage-coach  journey.  The 
two  became  friendly  on  the  journey.  The  Kentuck- 
ian had  a  bottle  of  French  brandy  and  offered 
Lincoln  a  drink.  "I  never  drink,"  Lincoln  replied. 
Later,  he   offered   him   tobacco.     "I   never   use 

8 


tobacco,"  Lincoln  told  him.  When  the  coach 
reached  the  end  of  its  journey,  the  old  man  shook 
Lincoln's  hand  warmly,  and,  in  good  humor,  said: 
"See  here,  stranger,  you  are  a  clever,  but  strange 
companion,  I  may  never  see  you  again,  and  I  don't 
want  to  offend  you,  but  I  want  to  say,  that  my 
experience  has  taught  me  that  a  man  who  has  no 
vices  has— few  virtues.     Good-day." 

Lincoln's  determination  to  reject  liquor  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  story  of  a  feat  of  strength  per- 
formed by  him  just  to  help  a  friend  out  of  a  little 
affair.  "William  Greene  was  one  of  Lincoln's 
earliest  and  most  intimate  personal  friends  at  New 
Salem.  They  served  in  the  same  company  in  the 
Black  Hawk  war.  Greene  had  just  been  instru- 
mental in  selecting  Lincoln  as  Captain  of  the 
Company,  and  was  boastfully  telling  a  temporary 
sojourner  in  the  town  that  Lincoln  was  the  strong- 
est man,  physically,  in  Illinois.  The  stranger  said 
he  knew  a  man  who  was  stronger. 

"How  much  will  he  lift?"  asked  Greene. 

"A  barrel  of  flour,"  the  stranger  replied. 

"Abe  will  lift  two,"  retorted  the  enthusiastic 
Greene. 

"That's  a  great  story,"  said  the  stranger, 
laughing. 

'Great  story  or  not,"  replied  Greene,  "I'll  bet 
you  a  hat  that  Abe  will  lift  a  barrel  of  whiskey, 

9 


holding  forty  gallons,  and  drink   from  the   bung- 
hole." 

The  stranger  accepted  the  wager,  and  they 
went  to  the  store  where  Lincoln  was  employed 
and  made  known  their  errand. 

'  I  don't  think  much  of  the  betting  part,"  Lin- 
coln told  them,  "  but  I  guess  I  will  help  William 
out  of  the  affair."  He  then  proceeded  to  perform 
the  feat.  The  barrel  was  lifted,  and  a  quantity  of 
the  whiskey  was  taken  from  the  bung-hole. 

1  That  is  the  first  dram  of  whiskey  I  ever  saw 
you  drink,"  said  Greene  to  Lincoln.  The  words 
were  hardly  uttered,  when  Lincoln  sat  down  the 
barrel,  and  spurted  the  whiskey  from  his  mouth 
upon  the  floor,  saying,  "And  I  haven't  drank  that, 
you  see." 

In  a  letter  to  William  M.  Thayer,  one  of  the 
earliest  writers  on  the  life  of  Lincoln,  Greene 
wrote,  'That  was  the  only  drink  of  intoxicating 
liquor  I  ever  saw  Lincoln  take,  and  that  he  spat 
upon  the  floor."  In  the  same  letter  Greene  wrote 
that,  on  the  evening  following  the  affair,  Lincoln 
lectured  him  on  the  evil  of  betting,  and  secured 
his  promise  that  he  would  not  repeat  the  offense. 

A  version  of  the  foregoing  story  was  recently 
published  by  leading  daily  papers  of  the  country, 
evidently  in  an  effort  to  help  the  liquor  cause,  but 
it  was  garbled  and  not  told  as  Greene,  himself, 
wrote  it  to  historian  Thayer. 

10 


Andrew  Shuman,  who,  as  staff  correspondent 
of  a  leading  Chicago  daily  paper,  traveled  over  the 
State  of  Illinois  with  Lincoln  during  the  famous 
senatorial  campaign  of  1858,  tells  of  an  incident 
when  the  party,  having  missed  a  train,  were  com- 
pelled to  stay"  over  night  in  a  cross  roads  town  in 
the  central  part  of  the  State.  "After  supper,"  said 
he,  "Lincoln  sat  in  the  public  room  of  the  town 
tavern,  for  an  hour,  talking  familiarly  with  the 
loungers  of  the  town.  Every  man  present,  Lincoln 
excepted,  smoked  or  chewed  tobacco,  and  occa- 
sionally indulged  at  the  bar."  Mr.  Shuman  was 
afterwards  lieutenant-governor  of  Illinois. 

G.  W.  Harris  first  met  Lincoln  in  1840,  when 
the  latter  was  "  stumping "  the  State  for  General 
William  Henry"  Harrison.  Later  he  became  a 
student  and  clerk  in  Lincoln's  law  office,  and  was 
intimately"  associated  with  him  for  many  years. 
He  has  furnished  history  with  many"  interesting 
reminiscences  of  him.  In  one  of  these,  he  says : 
'Lincoln  was  abstemious  in  every"  respect.  I 
have  heard  him  say  that  he  had  never  taken  a 
drink  of  liquor."  Stuart,  Logan  and  Herndon,  law 
partners  of  Lincoln  at  different  periods,  have  all 
given  evidence  as  to  his  strict  temperate  habits. 
Lincoln  made  temperance  speeches  as  early 
as  1837. 

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UNIVERSITY  OF 
ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 


In  1855  Lincoln  attended  a  session  of  court  at 
Clinton,  Illinois.  One  of  the  cases  on  the  docket 
was  the  result  of  an  indictment  that  had  been 
found  against  fifteen  women,  on  a  charge  of  tres- 
pass. Their  offense  was  that  of  having  entered  a 
liquor  shop  and  knocked  in  the  heads  of  several 
barrels  of  whiskey.  The  shop  was  kept  by  a  man 
named  Tanner.  Lincoln  was  not  employed  in  the 
case,  but  he  was  interested  in  the  trial  as  it  pro- 
ceeded. In  defending  the  women,  their  attorney 
seemed  to  evince  little  tact,  and  this  fact  prompted 
one  of  the  defendants  to  ask  Lincoln  to  say  a  few 
words  to  the  jury,  if  he  thought  he  could  aid  their 
cause.  The  attorney  of  the  women  consenting, 
Lincoln  made  use  of  the  following  argument  before 
the  jury : 

"  In  this  case  I  would  change  the  order  of  indict- 
ment and  have  it  read,  The  State  vs.  Mr.  Whiskey 
instead  of  The  State  vs.  The  Ladies ;  and  touch- 
ing these  there  are  three  laws— the  law  of  self- 
protection,  the  law  of  the  land,  or  statute  law,  and 
the  moral  law,  or  law  of  God. 

"First,  the  law  of  self- protection  is  a  law  of 
necessity,  as  evinced  by  our  forefathers  in  casting 
the  tea  overboard  and  asserting  their  right  to  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  In  this  case 
it  is  the  only  defense  the  ladies  have,  for  Tanner 
neither  feared  God  nor  regarded  man. 

12 


<< 


Second,  the  law  of  the  land,  or  statute  law, 
and  Tanner  is  recreant  to  both. 

'Third,  the  moral  law,  or  law  of  God,  and  this 
is  probably  a  law  for  the  violation  of  which  the 
jury  can  fix  no  punishment." 

Lincoln  then  gave  some  of  his  own  observa- 
tions on  the  ruinous  effects  of  whiskey  in  society, 
and  demanded  the  early  suppresion  of  the  liquor 
traffic.     The  Court  dismissed  the  women. 

Immediately  after  Lincoln's  nomination  for  the 
presidency,  in  1860,  a  committee  from  the  National 
Republican  Convention,  of  which  Governor  Edwin 
D.  Morgan,  of  New  York,  was  chairman,  visited 
him  at  his  home,  and  officially  notified  him  of 
his  nomination.  After  the  ceremony  was  over, 
Lincoln  remarked  to  the  company"  that  as  an 
appropriate  conclusion  to  an  interview  so  import- 
ant and  interesting  as  that  which  had  just  hap- 
pened, he  supposed  good  manners  would  require 
that  he  treat  the  committee  with  something  to 
drink.  Opening  a  door  that  led  to  the  rear  of  the 
house,  he  called  a  servant  girl  to  whom  he  spoke 
a  few  words  in  an  undertone,  and  then  resumed 
conversation  with  his  guests.  In  a  few  minutes 
the  girl  entered  the  room,  bearing  a  large  tray, 
with  glass  pitcher  and  tumblers,  and  placed  them 
upon  a  centre  table.  Lincoln  arose,  and  gravely 
addressing  the  committee,  said : 

13 


a 


Gentlemen,  we  must  pledge  our  mutual  health 
in  the  most  healthy  beverage  that  God  has  given 
to  man.  It  is  the  only  beverage  I  have  ever  used 
or  allowed  my  family  to  use,  and  I  cannot  consci- 
enciously  depart  from  it  on  the  present  occasion. 
It  is  pure  Adam's  ale  from  the  spring."  He 
touched  the  tumbler  to  his  lips,  and  pledged  them 
his  respects  in  a  cup  of  cold  water.  His  guests 
admired  his  consistency  and  joined  in  his  example. 

Abbott,  the  historian,  says  that,  "  before  the 
committee  of  the  convention  waited  upon  Lincoln 
with  the  announcement  of  his  nomination,  some  of 
his  friends  sent  him  several  hampers  of  wine  for 
their  entertainment.  But  Lincoln  was  not  only 
a  temperance  man,  but  a  total  abstinence  man. 
Resolved  not  to  allow  that  new  temptation  to 
induce  him  to  swerve  from  his  principles,  he 
returned  the  gift  with  kindest  words  of  gratitude 
for  the  favor  intended." 

William  H.  Herndon,  who  was  Lincoln's  law 
partner  when  he  was  elected  president,  wrote  that 
"Lincoln  had  no  vices."  Judge  Joseph  Gillespie, 
of  Edwardsville,  Illinois,  who  served  as  a  member 
of  the  legislature  with  Lincoln,  said  of  him:  "As 
a  boon  companion,  Mr.  Lincoln,  although  he  never 
drank  a  drop  of  liquor,  or  used  tobacco  in  any  form, 
in  all  his  lifetime,  was  without  a  rival."  William 
H.  Seward,  Lincoln's  great  Secretary  of  State  said 

14 


of  him:  He  was  the  best  man  I  ever  knew." 
Stanton,  his  Secretary  of  War,  looking  upon  his 
remains,  just  after  his  death,  said  to  those  who 
stood  by  him:  "He  was  the  most  perfect  ruler  of 
men  the  world  has  ever  seen." 

Responding  to  an  address  from  the  Sons  of 
Temperance,  at  Washington,  September  29,  1863, 
President  Lincoln,  in  part,  said: 

"As  a  matter  of  course,  it  will  not  be  possible 
for  me  to  make  a  response  co-extensive  with  the 
address  you  have  presented  to  me.  If  I  were  bet- 
ter known  than  I  am,  you  would  not  need  to  be 
told  that,  in  advocacy  of  the  cause  of  temperance 
you  have  a  friend  and  sympathizer  in  me.  When 
I  was  a  young  man,  long  ago,  before  the  Sons  of 
Temperence,  as  an  organization,  had  an  existence, 
I,  in  an  humble  way,  made  temperance  speeches, 
and  I  think  that  I  may  say  that  to  this  day  I  have 
never,  by  my  example,  belied  what  I  then  said. 
I  think  that  the  reasonable  men  of  the  world,  have 
long  since  agreed  that  intemperance  is  one  of  the 
greatest,  if  not  the  very  greatest,  of  all  evils  among 
mankind.  That  is  not  a  matter  of  dispute,  I  believe." 

But  very  recently,  a  Chicago  man  issued  a 
pamphlet,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  show  that. 
Lincoln  was  not  friendly  toward  prohibition.  He 
tried  to  prove  his  case,  and  satisfy  the  liquor 
interests,  by  garbling  what  Lincoln   said   on  the 

15 


great  question.  If  the  Chicago  defender  of  the 
liquor  evil  will  issue  a  pamphlet  containing  Lin- 
coln's public  utterances  on  the  temperance  ques- 
tion, unabridged  and  in  their  entirety,  he  will 
show  how  grossly"  he  has  misrepresented  the 
greatest  American  in  his  zeal  to  help  the  liquor 
cause.  To  attempt  any  defense  of  the  liquor  evil 
is  bad  enough.  To  attempt  its  defense  by  mis- 
representing the  attitude  toward  it  of  the  most 
revered  American  is  infinitely"  worse.  Lincoln's 
speech  at  Springfield,  February  22,  1842,  and  his 
short  talk  to  the  Sons  of  Temperance,  in  Washing- 
ton, twenty- one  years  later,  define  his  position  on 
the  questions  of  both  temperance  and  prohibition. 
In  the  absence  of  better  evidence,  which  the 
liquor  interests  cannot  produce,  those  speeches, 
and  the  testimony  of  personal  friends,  and  the  his- 
torians of  his  time,  must  be  accepted  in  preference 
to  the  pamphlet  writer  of  Chicago. 

James  A.  Connelly,  who  knew  Lincoln,  per- 
sonally, and  well,  delivered  the  principal  address 
at  the  Lincoln  memorial  exercises,  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  April  15,  1885.  Among  other  things,  he 
said:  "As  he  went  from  county  to  county  on  his 
wide  circuit,  men  followed  him  without  knowing 
why.  When  the  night  fell,  and  the  lawyers 
gathered  to  make  a  night  of  it  with  wit  and  song 
and  story,  the  gathering  was  sure  to  be  where 

16 


Lincoln  was,  and  while  the  rest  of  the  company 
burnished  their  wits,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  Lincoln,  abstemious 
as  an  anchorite,  seemed  to  draw  from  an  inexhaust- 
ible fountain  such  rich  treasures  of  wit  and  story 
that  the  rest  of  the  company  always  crowned  him 
king  of  the  carnival;  and  yet,  when  they  looked 
upon  that  sad,  homely  face  in  repose,  they  won- 
dered whence  came  his  magic  spell  that  so 
enthralled  them." 

It  is  said  that  the  speech  delivered  by  Lincoln 
to  the  members  of  the  Washingtonian  Temperance 
Society,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  February  22,  1842,  was  the  first  of  his 
speeches  to  appear  in  print.  It  was  published,  in 
full,  in  the  Sangamo  Journal,  at  Springfield,  Illinois, 
March  26,  1842.  It  is  his  most  extensive  utterance 
on  the  temperance  question,  and,  if  the  liquor 
interests  can  get  any"  satisfaction  from  it,  taking  it 
in  its  entirety,  they  are  welcome  to  it.  The  speech 
makes  it  plain  that  he  believed  that  the  total 
abolition  of  the  liquor  evil  would  be  the  grandest 
thing  that  could  happen  to  our  country.  It  is  here 
given  in  full  enabling  all  readers  to  judge  from  it 
just  where  Lincoln  stood  on  the  question  of  tem- 
perence;  and  how  far  he  went  toward  absolute 
prohibition: 

"Although  the  temperance  cause  has  been  in 

17 


progress  for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to 
all  that  it  is  just  now  being  crowned  with  a  degree 
of  success  hitherto  unparalelled.  The  list  of  its 
friends  is  daily  swelled  by  the  addition  of  fifties,  of 
hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause  itself 
seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold,  abstract 
theory,  to  a  living,  breathing,  active  and  powerful 
chieftain,  going  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer. 
The  citadels  of  its  great  adversary  are  daily  being 
stormed  and  dismantled;  his  temples  and  his  altars; 
where  the  rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have 
long  been  performed,  and  where  human  sacrifices 
have  long  been  wont  to  be  made,  are  daily  dese- 
crated and  deserted.  The  trump  of  the  conqueror's 
fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from  sea  to  sea, 
and  from  land  to  land  and  calling  millions  to  his 
standard  blast.  For  this  new  and  splendid  suc- 
cess we  heartily  rejoice.  That  success  is  so  much 
greater  now,  than  heretofore,  is  doubtless  owing 
to  rational  causes,  and  if  we  would  have  it  con- 
tinue, we  shall  do  well  to  inquire  what  those 
causes  are. 

"The  warfare  heretofore  waged  against  the 
demon  intemperance,  has  somehow  or  other  been 
erroneous.  Either  the  champions  engaged  or  the 
tactics  they  adopted,  have  not  been  the  most 
proper.  These  champions,  for  the  most  part,  have 
been    preachers,    lawyers    and    hired    agents. 

18 


Between  these  and  the  mass  of  mankind,  there  is 
a  want  of  approachibility,  if  the  term  be  admiss- 
able,  partial  at  least,  fatal  to  their  success.  They 
are  supposed  to  have  no  sympathy  of  feeling  or 
interest  with  those  very  persons  whom  it  is  their 
object  to  convince  and  persuade ;  and  again,  it  is 
so  easy  and  so  common  to  ascribe  motives  to  men 
of  these  classes,  other  than  those  they  profess  to 
act  upon.  The  preacher,  it  is  said,  advocates 
temperance  because  he  is  a  fanatic  and  desires  a 
union  of  the  state  and  church ;  the  lawyer  from 
his  pride  and  vanity  of  hearing  himself  speak ;  and 
the  hired  agent  for  his  salary.  But  when  one  who 
has  long  been  known  as  a  victim  of  intemperance, 
bursts  the  fetters  that  bound  him,  and  appears 
before  his  neighbors  'clothed  and  in  his  right  mind,' 
a  redeemed  specimen  of  long  lost  humanity,  and 
stands  up  with  tears  of  joy  in  his  eyes,  to  tell  of 
the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be  endured  no 
more  forever;  of  his  once  naked  and  starving 
children,  now  clad  and  fed  comfortably;  of  a  wife, 
long  weighed  down  with  woe,  weeping  and  a 
broken  heart,  now  restored  to  health,  happiness 
and  a  renewed  affection;  and  how  easily  it  is  all 
done,  once  it  is  resolved  to  be  done;  however  sim- 
ple his  language,  there  is  a  logic  and  an  eloquence 
in  it  that  few  with  human  feelings  can  resist. 
They  cannot  say  he   is  vain   of  hearing   himself 

19 


speak,  for  his  whole  demeanor  shows  he  would 
gladly  avoid  speaking  at  all;  they  cannot  say  he 
speaks  for  pay,  for  he  receives  none.  Nor  can  his 
sincerity  in  any  way  be  doubted;  or  his  sympathy 
for  those  who  would  persuade  to  imitate  his 
example  be  denied. 

"In  my  judgment,  it  is  to  the  battles  of  this  new 
class  of  champions  that  our  great  success  is 
greatly,  perhaps  chiefly  owing.  But  had  the  old 
school  champions  themselves  been  of  the  most 
wise  selecting,  was  their  system  of  tactics  most 
judicious?  It  seems  to  me  it  was  not.  Too  much 
denunciation  against  dram-sellers  and  dram- 
drinkers  was  indulged  in.  This,  I  think,  was  both 
impolitic  and  unjust.  It  was  impolitic,  because  it 
is  not  much  in  the  nature  of  man  to  be  driven  to 
anything;  still  less  to  be  driven  about  that  which 
he  thinks  is  exclusively  his  own  business;  and  least 
of  all,  where  such  driving  is  to  be  submitted  to, 
at  the  expense  of  pecuniary  interests,  or  burning 
appetite.  When  the  dram-seller  and  dram  drinker 
were  incessantly  told,  not  in  the  accent  of  entreaty 
and  persuasion  diffidently  addressed  by  erring 
man  to  an  erring  brother,  but  in  the  thundering 
tones  of  anathema  and  denunciation,  with  which 
the  lordly"  judge  often  groups  together  all  the 
crimes  of  the  felon's  life  and  thrusts  them  in  his 
face  just  ere  he  passes  sentence  of  death  upon  him, 

20 


that  they  were  the  authors  of  all  the  vice  and 
misery  and  crime  in  the  land;  that  they  were  the 
manufacturers  and  material  of  all  the  thieves  and 
robbers  and  murderers  that  infest  the  earth;  that 
their  houses  were  the  workshops  of  the  devil; 
and  that  their  persons  should  be  shunned  by  all 
the  good  and  virtuous,  as  moral  pestilences.  I 
say,  when  they  were  told  this,  and  in  this  way,  it 
is  not  wonderful  that  they  were  slow,  very  slow, 
to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  such  denunciations, 
and  to  join  the  ranks  of  their  denouncers,  in  a  hue 
and  cry  against  themselves.  To  have  expected 
them  to  do  otherwise  than  they  did,  to  have 
expected  them  not  to  meet  denunciation  with 
denunciation,  crimination  with  crimination,  and 
anathema  with  anathema,  was  to  expect  a  reversal 
of  human  nature,  which  is  God's  decree  and  can 
never  be  reversed. 

"When  the  conduct  of  men  is  designed  to  be 
influenced,  persuasion,  kind  unassuming  per- 
suasion, should  ever  be  adopted.  It  is  an  old  and 
true  maxim,  'that  a  drop  of  honey  catches  more 
flies  than  a  gallon  of  gall.'  So  with  men.  If  you 
would  win  a  man  to  your  cause,  first  convince 
him  that  you  are  his  sincere  friend.  Therein  is 
a  drop  of  honey  that  touches  his  heart,  which,  say 
what  he  will,  is  the  great  high  road  to  his  reason, 
and  which,  when  once  organized,  you  will  find  but 

21 


little  trouble  in  convincing  his  judgment  of  the 
justice  of  your  cause,  if  indeed  that  cause  really  be 
a  just  one.  On  the  contrary,  assume  to  dictate  to 
his  judgment  or  to  command  his  action,  or  to 
mark  him  as  one  to  be  shunned  and  despised,  and 
he  will  retreat  within  himself,  close  all  the  avenues 
of  his  head  and  his  heart;  and  though  your  cause 
be  naked  truth  itself,  transformed  to  the  heaviest 
lance,  harder  than  steel,  and  sharper  than  steel 
can  be  made,  and  though  you  throw  it  with  more 
than  herculean  force  and  precision,  you  shall  be 
no  more  able  to  pierce  him,  than  to  penetrate  the 
hard  shell  of  a  tortoise  with  a  rye-straw.  Such  is 
man,  and  so  must  he  be  understood  by  those  who 
would  lead  him,  even  to  his  own   best  interests. 

'On  this  point  the  Washing tonians  greatly 
excel  the  temperance  advocates  of  former  times. 
Those  whom  they  desire  to  convince  and  persuade 
are  their  old  friends  and  companions.  They  know 
they  are  not  demons,  nor  even  the  worst  of  men; 
they  know  that  generally"  they  are  kind,  generous 
neighbors.  They"  are  practical  philanthropists; 
and  they  glow  with  a  generous  and  brotherly  zeal 
that  mere  theorizers  are  incapable  of  feeling.  Ben- 
evolence and  charity  possess  their  hearts  entirely; 
and  out  of  the  abundance  of  their  hearts,  their 
tongues  give  utterance,  'Love  through  all  their 
actions  run  and  all  their  words  are  mild;'  in  this 

22 


spirit  they  speak  and  act,  and  in  the  same  they  are 
heard  and  regarded.  And  when  such  is  the  tem- 
per of  the  advocate,  and  such  of  the  audience,  no 
good  cause  can  be  unsuccessful.  But  I  have  said 
that  denunciation  against  dram-sellers  and  dram- 
drinkers  are  unjust,  as  well  as  impolitic.  Let  us 
see. 

"I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time 
the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  commenced ;  nor  is 
it  important  to  know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of 
us  who  now  inhabit  the  world,  the  practice  of 
drinking  is  just  as  old  as  the  world  itself— that  is, 
we  have  seen  the  one  just  as  long  as  we  have 
seen  the  other.  When  all  such  of  us  as  have 
now  reached  the  years  of  maturity,  first  opened 
our  eyes  upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found 
intoxicating  liquor ;  recognized  by~  everybody, 
used  by  everybody,  repudiated  by  nobody.  It 
commonly  entered  into  the  first  draught  of  the 
infant,  and  the  last  draught  of  the  dying  man. 
From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson,  down  to  the 
ragget  pocket  of  the  houseless  loafer,  it  was  con- 
stantly found.  Physicians  prescribed  it,  in  this, 
that  and  the  other  disease ;  government  provided 
it  for  the  soldiers  and  sailors;  and  to  have  a 
log-rolling  or  raising,  a  husking  or  'hoe-down' 
anywhere  about,  without  it,  was  positively  unsuf- 
ferable.     So,  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable 

23 


article  of  manufacture  and  of  merchandise.  The 
making  of  it  was  regarded  as  an  honorable  liveli- 
hood, and  he  who  could  make  most  was  most 
enterprising  and  respectable.  Large  and  small 
manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere  erected,  in 
which  all  the  earthly  goods  of  their  owners  were 
invested.  Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to  town ; 
boats  bore  it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds 
wafted  it  from  nation  to  nation ;  and  merchants 
bought  and  sold  it,  by  wholesale  and  retail,  with 
precisely  the  same  feelings  on  the  part  of  the 
seller,  buyer  and  by-stander,  as  are  felt  at  the 
selling  and  buying  of  plows,  beef,  bacon,  or  any 
other  of  the  real  necessaries  of  life.  Universal 
public  opinion  not  only  tolerated,  but  recognized 
and  adopted  its  use. 

'  It  is  true,  that  even  then  it  was  known  and 
acknowledged  that  many  were  greatly  injured  by 
it ;  but  none  seemed  to  think  the  injury  arose  from 
the  use  of  a  bad  thing,  but  from  the  abuse  of  a 
very  good  thing.  The  victims  of  it  were  to  be 
pitied,  and  compassionated,  just  as  are  the  heirs 
of  consumption,  and  other  hereditary  diseases. 
Their  failing  was  treated  as  a  misfortune,  and  not 
as  a  crime,  or  even  as  a  disgrace.  If,  then,  what 
I  have  been  saying  is  true,  is  it  wonderful  that 
some  should  think  and  act  now  as  all  thought  and 
acted  twenty  years  ago,  and  is  it  just  to  assail, 

24 


condemn,  or  despise  them  for  doing  so  ?  The 
universal  sense  of  mankind,  on  any  subject,  is  an 
argument,  or  at  least  an  influence,  not  easily  over- 
come. The  success  of  the  argument  in  favor  of 
the  existence  of  an  overruling  Providence  mainly 
depends  upon  that  sense ;  and  men  ought  not,  in 
justice,  to  be  denounced  for  yielding  to  it  in  any 
case,  or  giving  it  up  slowly,  especially  when  they 
are  backed  by  interest,  fixed  habits,  or  burning 
appetites. 

"Another  error,  as  it  seems  to  me,  into  which 
the  old  reformers  fell,  was  the  position  that  all 
habitual  drunkards  were  utterly  incorrigible,  and, 
therefore,  must  be  turned  adrift,  and  damned  with- 
out remedy,  in  order  that  the  grace  of  temperance 
might  abound,  to  the  temperate  then,  and  to  all 
mankind  some  hundreds  of  years  thereafter. 
There  is  in  this  something  so  repugnant  to 
humanity,  so  uncharitable,  so  cold-blooded  and 
feelingless,  that  it  never  did  nor  never  can  enlist 
the  enthusiasm  of  a  popular  cause.  We  could  not 
love  the  man  who  taught  it;  we  could  not  hear 
him  with  patience.  The  heart  could  not  throw 
open  its  portals  to  it,  the  generous  man  could  not 
adopt  it— it  could  not  mix  with  his  blood.  It 
looked  so  fiendishly"  selfish,  so  like  throwing 
fathers  and  brothers  overboard,  to  lighten  the 
boat    for    our    security,    that    the    noble-minded 

25 


shrank  from  the  manifest  meanness  of  the  thing. 
And  besides  this,  the  benefits  of  a  reformation  to 
be  affected  by  such  a  system,  were  too  remote  in 
point  of  time  to  warmly  engage  many  in  its  behalf. 
Few  can  be  engaged  to  labor  exclusively  for  pos- 
terity ;  and  none  will  do  it  enthusiastically.  Pos- 
terity has  done  nothing  for  us,  and  theorize  on  it 
as  we  may,  practically  we  shall  do  very  little  for 
it,  unless  we  are  made  to  think  we  are,  at  the 
same  time,  doing  something  for  ourselves.  What 
an  ignorance  of  human  nature  does  it  exhibit,  to 
ask  or  expect  a  whole  community  to  rise  up  and 
labor  for  the  temporal  happiness  of  others,  after 
themselves  shall  be  consigned  to  the  dust,  a 
majority"  of  which  community"  takes  no  pains 
whatever  to  secure  their  own  eternal  welfare  at 
no  greater  distant  day  ?  Great  distance  in  either 
time  or  space  has  wonderful  power  to  lull  and 
render  quiescent  the  human  mind.  Pleasures  to 
be  enjoyed  or  pains  to  be  endured,  after  we  shall 
be  dead  and  gone,  are  but  little  regarded  even  in 
our  own  cases,  and  much  les*s  in  the  cases  of 
others.  Still,  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  some- 
thing so  ludicrous  in  promises  of  good  or  threats 
of  evil,  a  great  way  off,  as  to  render  the  whole 
subject  with  which  they  are  connected,  easily 
turned  into  ridicule.  '  Better  lay  down  that  spade 
you're  stealing,  Paddy.     If  you  don't  you'll  pay  for 

26 


it  at  the  day  of  judgment.'     '  Be  the  powers,  if  ye'l 
credit  me  that  long,  I'll  take  another.' 

"  By  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  con- 
signing the  habitual  drunkard  to  hopeless  ruin,  is 
repudiated.  They  adopt  a  more  enlarged  philan- 
thropy, they  go  for  present  as  well  as  future  good. 
They  labor  for  all  now  living,  as  well  as  hereafter 
to  live.  They  teach  hope  to  all,  despair  to  none. 
As  applying  to  their  cause,  they  deny  the  doctrine 
of  unpardonable  sin,  as  in  Christianity  it  is  taught, 
so  in  this  they  teach— 

1  While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn ; 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return.' 

"And  what  is  a  matter  of  the  most  profound 
congratulation,  they,  by  experiment  upon  experi- 
ment, and  example  upon  example,  prove  the 
maxim  to  be  no  less  true  in  the  one  case  than  in 
the  other.  On  every  hand  we  behold  those  who 
but  yesterday  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  now  the 
chief  apostles  of  the  cause.  Drunken  devils  are 
cast  out  by  ones,  by  sevens,  by  legions ;  and  these 
unfortunate  victims,  like  the  poor  possessed,  who 
was  redeemed  from  his  long  and  lonely  wander- 
ings in  the  tombs,  are  publishing  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth  how  great  things  have  been  done  for 
them.  To  these  new  champions,  and  this  new 
system  of  tactics,  our  late  success  is  mainly  owing; 
and  to  them  we  must  mainly  look  for  the  consum- 

27 


mation.  The  ball  is  rolling  gloriously  on,  and  none 
are  so  able  as  they  to  increase  its  speed  and  its 
bulk— to  add  to  its  momentum  and  its  magnitude 
—even  though  unlearned  in  letters,  for  this  task 
none  are  so  well  educated.  To  fit  them  for  this 
work  they  have  been  taught  in  a  true  school. 
They  have  been  in  that  gulf,  from  which  they 
would  teach  others  the  means  of  escape.  They 
have  passed  that  prison  wall  which  others  have 
long  declared  impassable ;  and  who  that  has  not, 
shall  dare  to  weigh  opinions  with  them  as  to  the 
mode  of  passing  ? 

"  But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those 
who  have  suffered  by  intemperance  personally, 
and  have  reformed,  are  the  most  powerful  and 
efficient  instruments  to  push  the  reformation  to 
ultimate  success,  it  does  not  follow  that  those  who 
have  not  suffered  have  no  part  left  them  to  per- 
form. Whether  or  not  the  world  would  be  vastly 
benefited  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from  it 
of  all  intoxicating  drinks,  seems  to  me  not  now  an 
open  question.  Three-fourths  of  mankind  confess 
the  affirmative  with  their  tongues,  and,  I  believe, 
all  the  rest  acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts. 

"Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing 
what  the  good  of  the  whole  demands?  Shall  he, 
who  cannot  do  much,  be,  for  that  reason,  excused 
if  he   do   nothing?     'But,'  says    one,   'what  good 

28 


can  I  do  by  signing  the  pledge?  I  never  drink, 
even  without  signing.'  This  question  has  already 
been  asked  and  answered  more  than  a  million  of 
times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more.  For  the 
man  to  suddenly,  or  in  any  other  way  to  break  off 
from  the  use  of  drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them 
for  a  long  course  of  years,  and  until  his  appetite 
for  them  has  grown  ten  or  a  hundred  fold  stronger, 
and  more  craving  than  any  natural  appetite  can  be, 
requires  a  most  powerful  moral  effort.  In  such 
an  undertaking  he  needs  every  moral  support  and 
influence  that  can  possibly  be  brought  to  his  aid 
and  thrown  around  him.  And  not  only  so,  but 
every  moral  prop  should  be  taken  from  whatever 
argument  might  arise  in  his  mind  to  lure  him  to 
his  backsliding.  When  he  casts  his  eyes  around 
him,  he  should  be  able  to  see  all  that  he  respects, 
all  that  he  admires,  all  that  he  loves,  kindly  and 
anxiously  pointing  him  onward,  and  none  beckon- 
ing him  back,  to  his  former  miserable  'wallowing 
in  the  mire.' 

"But  it  is  said  by  some  that  men  will  think  and 
act  for  themselves;  that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or 
anything  else  because  his  neighbors  do;  and  that 
moral  influence  is  not  that  powerful  engine  con- 
tended for.  Let  us  examine  this.  Let  me  ask  the 
man  who  could  maintain  this  position  most  stiffly, 
what  compensation  he  will  accept  to  go  to  church 

29 


some  Sunday  and  sit  during  the  sermon  with  his 
wife's  bonnet  upon  his  head?  Not  a  trifle,  I'll  ven- 
ture. And  why  not?  There  would  be  nothing 
irreligious  in  it;  nothing  immoral,  nothing  uncom- 
fortable—then why  not?  Is  it  not  because  there 
would  be  something  egregiously  unfashionable  in 
it?  Then  it  is  the  influence  of  fashion;  and  what 
is  the  influence  of  fashion  but  the  influence  that 
other  people's  actions  have  on  our  own  actions— 
the  strong  inclination  each  of  us  have  to  do  as  we 
see  our  neighbors  do?  Nor  is  the  influence  of 
fashion  confined  to  any  particular  thing  or  class  of 
things.  It  is  just  as  strong  on  one  subject  as 
another.  Let  us  make  it  as  unfashionable  to  with- 
hold our  names  from  the  temperance  pledge  as  for 
husbands  to  wear  their  wive's  bonnets  to  church, 
and  instances  will  be  as  rare  in  one  case  as  the 
other. 

'But,'  say  some,  'we  are  no  drunkards  and 
shall  not  acknowledge  ourselves  as  such  by  joining 
a  reformed  drunkards'  society,  whatever  our  influ- 
ence might  be.'  Surely  no  Christian  will  adhere 
to  this  objection. 

"  If  they  believe,  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipo- 
tence condescended  to  take  on  Himself  the  form  of 
sinful  man,  and,  as  such,  to  die  an  ignominious 
death  for  their  sakes,  surely  they  will  not  refuse 
submission  to  the  infinitely  lesser  condescension, 

30 


for  the  temporal,  and,  perhaps,  eternal,  salvation 
of  a  large,  erring  and  unfortunate  class  of  their 
fellow  creatures.  Nor  is  the  condescension  very 
great.  In  my  judgment,  such  of  us  as  have  not 
fallen  victims  have  been  spared  more  from  the 
absence  of  appetite  than  from  any  mental  or  moral 
superiority  over  those  who  have.  Indeed,  I  believe, 
if  we  take  habitual  drunkards  as  a  class,  their 
heads  and  their  hearts  will  bear  an  advantageous 
comparison  with  any  other  class.  There  seems 
ever  to  have  been  a  proneness  in  the  brilliant  and 
warm-blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice-  the  demon  of 
intemperance  ever  seems  to  have  delighted  in  suck- 
ing the  blood  of  genius  and  of  generosity.  'What 
one  of  us  but  can  call  to  mind  some  relative,  more 
promising  in  youth  than  all  his  fellows,  who  has 
fallen  a  sacrifice  to  his  rapacity?  He  ever  seems 
to  have  gone  forth  like  the  Egyptian  angel  of 
Death,  commissioned  to  slay,  if  not  the  first,  the 
fairest  born,  of  every  family.  Shall  he  now  be 
arrested  in  his  desolating  career?  In  that  arrest, 
all  can  give  aid  that  will;  and  who  shall  be  excused 
that  can,  and  will  not?  Far  around  as  human 
breath  has  ever  blown,  he  keeps  our  fathers,  our 
brothers,  our  sons,  and  our  friends  prostrate  in  the 
chains  of  moral  death.  To  all  the  living  else- 
where, we  cry,  'Come,  sound  the  moral  trump, 
that   there  may  rise  and    stand    up  an  exceeding 

31 


great  army.'  'Come  from  the  four  winds,  O 
breath!  and  breathe  upon  these  slain  that  they  may 
live.'  If  the  relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall 
be  estimated  by  the  great  amount  of  human  misery 
they  alleviate,  and  the  small  amount  they  inflict, 
then,  indeed,  will  this  be  the  grandest  the  world 
shall  ever  have  seen. 


C'j 


Of  our  political  revolutions  of  '76  we  are  all 
justly  proud.  It  has  given  us  a  degree  of  political 
freedom  far  exceeding  that  of  any  other  nation  of 
the  earth.  In  it  the  world  has  found  a  solution  of 
the  long  mooted  problem  as  to  the  capability  of 
man  to  govern  himself.  In  it  is  the  germ  which 
has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow  and  expand  into 
the  universal  liberty  of  mankind. 

"But,  with  all  these  glorious  results,  past,  pres- 
ent, and  to  come,  it  had  its  evils,  too.  It  breathed 
forth  famine,  swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire;  and 
long,  long  after,  the  orphan's  cry  and  the  widow's 
wail  continued  to  break  the  sad  silence  that  ensued. 
These  were  the  price,  the  inevitable  price,  paid  for 
the  blessings  it  bought. 

'Turn  now,  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In 
it  we  shall  find  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler 
slavery  manumitted,  a  greater  tyrant  deposed— in 
it,  more  of  want  supplied,  more  disease  healed; 
more  sorrow  assuaged.  By  it,  no  orphans  starv- 
ing, no    widows    weeping.     By   it,  none  wounded 

32 


in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest;  even  the  dram- 
maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into  other 
occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt  the 
change,  and  will  stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in 
the  universal  song  of  gladness.  And  what  a  noble 
ally  this  to  the  cause  of  political  freedom.  With 
such  an  aid,  its  march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on, 
till  every  son  of  earth  shall  drink,  in  rich  fruition, 
the  sorrow-quenching  draughts  of  perfect  liberty. 
Happy  days,  when  all  appetites  controlled,  all 
poisons  subdued,  all  matter  subjected,  mind,  all- 
conquering  mind,  shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch 
of  the  world.  Glorious  consummation  !  Hail,  fall  of 
fury!  Reign  of  reason,  all  hail! 

"And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete; 
when  there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  or  a  drunkard 
on  the  earth,  how  proud  the  title  of  that  Land 
which  may  truly  claim  to  be  the  birth  place  and 
the  cradle  of  both  these  revolutions  that  shall  have 
ended  in  that  victory.  How  nobly  distinguished 
that  people,  who  shall  have  planted  and  nurtured 
to  maturity,  both  the  political  and  moral  freedom 
of  their  species. 

'This  is  the  one  hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
birthday  of  Washington.  We  are  met  to  cele- 
brate this  day.  Washington  is  the  mightiest  name 
of  earth— long  since  mightier  in  the  cause  of  civil 
liberty,  still  mightiest  in  moral  reformation.     On 

33 


that  name  a  eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be. 
To  add  brightness  to  the  sun,  or  glory  to  the  name 
of  Washington,  is  alike  impossible.  Let  none 
attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name, 
and  in  its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it  shin- 
ing on." 

Lincoln  was  thirty-three  years  old  when  the 
foregoing  address  was  delivered.  It  was  at  the 
very  end  of  his  career  as  a  member  of  the  Illinois 
legislature. 

At  another  time  Lincoln  said;  "The  liquor 
traffic  is  a  cancer  in  society.  There  must  be  no 
more  attempts  to  regulate  it.  It  must  be  eradi- 
cated; not  a  root  must  be  left  behind." 

Mr.  Lincoln  is  also  quoted  as  follows  on  the 
temperance  question: 

"if  the  prohibition  of  slavery  is  good  for  the 
black  man,  the  prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic 
is  equally  good  and  constitutional  for  the  white 
man." 

"Law  must  protect  and  conserve  right  things, 
and  punish  wrong  things,  and  if  there  is  any  evil 
in  the  land  that  threatens  society  or  individuals 
more  than  another,  it  is  the  liquor  traffic." 

"After  reconstruction,  the  next  great  question 
will  be  the  overthrow  of  the  liquor  traffic." 

'The    most    effectual    remedy   would   be   the 

34 


K, 


passage  of  a  law  altogether  abolishing  the  liquor 
traffic." 

"Under  the  license  system  the  saloons  multi- 
ply drunkards." 

You  have  Mr.  Lincoln's  record  on  the  liquor 
question.  Your  intelligence  is  insulted  whenever 
you  are  told  that  he  was  other  than  liquor's 
avowed  enemy.  As  already  declared,  Lincoln 
was  never  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  great  moral 
question. 

In  the  last  letter  he  ever  wrote  for  publication 
and  which  was  a  general  discussion  of  political 
questions,  Ex-President  Grover  Cleveland  said; 
"Since  the  last  presidential  election  the  temper- 
ance sentiment  has  developed  marvelously  and 
extended  to  a  greater  scope  than  anything  else  in 
our  history  since  the  abolition  of  slavery."  The 
next  few  years  will  witness  an  even  greater 
development  of  the  same  sentiment  unless  all  signs 
fail. 


35 


